This recording features Gustavo Dudamel, the 24-year-old Venezuelan conducting sensation whose excellence on the podium has earned him the admiration of fellow musicians and audiences around the world. Gustavo's first recording for Deutsche Grammophon tackles Beethoven's Symphonies nos. 5 & 7 - an album that is sure to attract major attention to this exciting young conductor and his extraordinary ensemble.

The New York Times - Vivien SchweitzerThe fiery and gifted young maestro might have chosen lesser-known Latin American works for his debut on Deutsche Grammophon. Instead he opted for two of the most fequently recorded staples of the repertory: Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. The gamble has certainly paid off. The members of the Caracas-based Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra . . . combine youthful enthusiasm, technical finesse and mature profundity: a rare combination, and an ideal one to capture the urgency and optimism of Beethoven's Fifth. From the works sinister opening motif through the lyrical second movement to the spirited final allegro, there is a refreshing sense of excitement. Since this is, presumably, the first time most of theses young musicians have played the work, their polished reading is all the more impressive. In Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Mr. Dudamel again elicits gorgeous phrasing from strings and winds. The hused, beautifully shaded Allegretto is particularly lovely, and the spirited Allegro comes off with unbridled brio.

BBC Music MagazineThere's a scarcely believable freshness and virtuosity in the playing...

Gramophone MagazineOn the evidence of these performances - a vibrant, glowing Seventh and a poorly thought-out, run-of-the-mill Fifth - Dudamel is a born conductor but an unpractised interpreter. His style suggests a longing to return to the glory days of an era which ended with the deaths of Bernstein, Karajan and Solti. The sound is full-bodied and carefully groomed; there is no antiphonal division of the violins; repeats are in short supply. Yet who can entirely object when the playing is as glorious as much of this? The Fifth is bedevilled by a lack of a through pulse in the first movement development and coda, and otiose broadenings of the motto at the end. ...the Seventh... brings out the best in Dudamel's conducting; it's visceral energy, its generosity of spirit (and phrasing), its heart-warming nurturing of a belief that every note matters. The orchestra responds nobly to his demands. The finale is a dead ringer for Karajan's 1983 Berlin version, which is saying something. For these young musicians to come within hailing distance of so fabled an ensemble is an earnest of just how special they are.